60 yrs and up

I pretty much never pre-log either: Doesn't suit my personality. It can be a great thing for others, but for me pre-logging would be so unnatural as to be a barrier to continuing. I needed find ways to manage my habits in other ways, and have been able to do so.

During weight loss, I logged everything - that "good, bad, ugly" - every single day, regardless of whether I was within goal or not, and even if I had to roughly estimate (non-chain restaurants, potlucks). I weigh nearly all my food - that's simpler, quicker and more reliable for me than going through a decision process about which things to weigh vs. eyeball vs. measure with cups/spoons. There are some efficiency tips for using a scale. (** See tips "footnote".)

I do have pretty standard breakfasts, which helps with predictability of my day. After I'd been logging daily for a while, I had a pretty good intuition about which foods were high calorie, and about how much I could fit in a day. (A little over or under goal doesn't matter, either. For example, 100 over/under when losing a pound a week - so a 500 calorie daily deficit - doesn't really matter, especially if you're using the weekly totals/averages as others have suggested.)

A couple of other tips for Sheila (@Bvgrammy) and others new to calorie tracking:

* Don't try to lose super fast. Starting out with maybe a pound a week loss as your goal, even half a pound, may be better. (Eating way too little tends to make us fatigued, so rest more and burn fewer calories than usual. It can also lead to water retention that makes the scale "stuck", makes us believe we're not losing fat even though we are.) Aggressive loss rates can be counter-productive, and they increase health risks. No one needs that, and we especially don't at our age!

* When you first use a food database item, check it against the label or other reliable source. The database is entered by regular users, and some are not accurate! Once you have accurate entries in your MFP recent/frequent foods, they'll be first in your searches, so this little bit of time investment in accuracy up front pays off long term.

* Avoid using other people's database entries for whole dishes (ham sandwich, lasagna, bean soup, etc.). There's no way to know how much butter/oil, mayo, etc., was in that person's recipe. If you ever have to do this to estimate a meal you ate at a friend's house, pick a middling to high calorie option from among those in the database. Picking the ultra-low ones is risky. Instead, create your own recipes/meals in MFP, and rely on the database entries for labeled food products (like Ragu Pasta Sauce, Heinz Catsup, Chobani Yogurt - whatever brand you're using) or simple foods (like milk, avocados, cheddar cheese, chicken breast, or other components you use in your meals).

* Use your food diary to adjust your eating patterns in an improved direction, gradually, over time. Review your diary every couple of days, notice the "gosh that had a lot of calories and wasn't all that tasty/filling/nutritious" things. Reduce those as you go forward, choose different foods you enjoy eating as replacements, ones that better help meet your goals. You don't have to be perfect right off. You can evolve toward better.

* If you log everything consistently for 4-6 weeks, and still aren't losing weight, you may need to adjust your goal downward a little. Don't go crazy here, don't take health risks. Maybe just reduce by 100 calories daily, monitor for another few weeks. Or, make it a point to move a little more (not just exercise, but also daily life). (**** See another "footnote" about daily life movement.)

* Log the "BLTs" - bites, licks, tastes. Don't forget condiments, dressings, beverages. (One person who posts here found she was eating 1000 calories most days just in add-in condiments, dressings, smears of butter, etc.!)

Food logging can feel really complex and burdensome at first. It's a skill set we need to learn, and more involved than many people might imagine. However, once one's been doing it for a while, gets in a groove, it stops being as time-consuming or attention-needing, becomes more an automatic habit.

I've been logging for almost 7 years now (I skip a day here and there now, but still log most days). I don't think it takes me more than 10 minutes on an average day, and that's to me a small price to pay for remaining at a healthy weight for 6+ years now, after 3 decades plus before that of overweight/obesity. I feel so much better, my quality of life is so much improved!

This calorie-counting weight management is a thing we can succeed at, at any age. There's a learning process, and it's not easy every second, but the basics are pretty simple, honestly. By our age, we've accomplished other life goals (education, career, family, home-making, financial management, etc.) that take patient, gradual learning and effort over time. We know how to manage our own unique preferences, strengths, and limitations on the road to those long-term goals. That's actually an advantage, for us 60-plus folks!


"Footnotes" 😆

** Example scale efficiency tips:

* Put the peanut butter jar on the scale, zero the scale. Dip in your table knife, pick out some PB. Read the negative number on the scale, that's how much you took out. Smear on your toast, lick the knife. I do the same with hunks of cheese, too - cut off some, read the negative.

* When making a sandwich, put the plate/bowl on the scale. Zero. Put on the bread. Note the weight. Zero. Put on the mayo. Note weight. Zero. Put on the cheese. Note weight, Zero. And so forth. Works for salads, soup or other cooked-food ingredients being assembled in a pot, too.

* Chopping food to put on/in something. Put the onion on a cutting board. Chop. Put the cutting board on the scale, zero. Dump the onion into (whatever you're making). Put the cutting board back on the scale. Read the negative.

**** Ideas for increasing daily life movement are in the thread linked below. Not all will work for everyone, but some may work for anyone.

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10610953/neat-improvement-strategies-to-improve-weight-loss/p1

Hello everyone, I'm Susanna. I would love to join this forum - turning 60 on Friday. Not a stranger to My Fitness Pal, but fell off the bandwagon for a while. Ever since I quit smoking 6 years ago, my weight has just piled on. Add in a fractured knee, no exercise, and then covid (depression from deaths of loved ones), which brings me to the present moment: 70 lb overweight. Determined to once and for all to stick to the plan and lose this weight, for good.

Nice to meet you all.

Hi @ksquacker ... Welcome. Well ... on the brighter side of it ... you'll only be able to lift food to your mouth with one hand, so some foods are off the table for now, which might help with your goal of trimming down. Are you in physical therapy now for your back?

@Pdc654 , thank you for the comment. That's how I took it when I saw the monthly average. Keeping the momentum going is the harder part of the weight ups and downs ... Over the years I have found that I can keep with the weight loss frame of mind for about about 4 months and then it needs a small break before starting up again. ... new habits become customary and then slip into mindlessness which leads to laxness which leads to a slippery slope ... the whole mental attitude needs a reboot periodically!

AFM .. today is the date that marks 58 years ago was my wedding day. He's been gone a long time, but I still remember this day we spent with all our friends and family celebrating the declaration of our union. I think I will go for a walk around the block this morning instead of baking a cake.

I am so glad to find older folks working on their weight loss journey. I'll be 64 in a few months, have fought my weight since I was 10 years old, and need both my knees replaced after several accidents in my life. Also have arthritis in one hip and a bum shoulder. So no running or weight lifting is happening here. Shortly before my 40th birthday, I got into really good shape logging my calories and mainly walking for exercise. I stayed in good shape for a few years until a surprise hysterectomy threw me into early menopause. It's all been downhill -- in the bad sense of the word -- since then.

A few years ago, while in a just miserable job, I hit a lifetime high of 216 pounds, but went back to logging my food for a while and lost 20 pounds, which I mostly kept off until the Covid years, when my knees also got worse. Now I'm back logging again and relying on vigorous housecleaning as my main exercise. I was at 203.6 on May 14 and 199.6 this morning. I see my doctor for a check-up on June 14, so sharing some weight loss happiness with him is my first goal.